Diabetes Drug Questioned

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A widely used diabetes drug may not be as good as doctors think, according to a recent review. The study reveals there is no clear-cut benefit to prescribing the drug pioglitazone (Actos) for patients with type 2 diabetes.

For the review, researchers analyzed data from 22 clinical trials involving 6,200 patients who were given pioglitazone treatment. Pioglitazone is one drug in a class of medicines called thiazolidinediones. These drugs are said to increase the body's naturally produced insulin, thereby allowing better uptake of glucose into the cells of the body and lowering blood glucose levels.

Study authors say not only did they not find evidence this drug had a positive influence on patients, they also noted an increased occurrence of edema and heart failure among patients taking the drug. They conclude that until new evidence is available, the benefits of pioglitazone remain unclear, and use of this drug should be restricted to patients demonstrating real benefit from this therapy.

John Buse, M.D., director of the Diabetes Care Center at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill reports, "The kernel from this review is that pioglitazone is effective in glucose-lowering, has some other beneficial and potentially harmful associated features, and just has not been evaluated in the right way to prove that it will help people lead longer and more productive lives. This is true for essentially every drug available for the treatment of diabetes. I am fairly certain that we are better off with pioglitazone than without it."

Buse also says the authors of this review are not incorrect in their findings, but that more data is needed to truly assess the benefits and risks of this drug.

SOURCE: The Chochrane Database of Systematice Reviews, 2006; Issue 4